Lost Baggage or, alternatively, Finders Keepers
by LeonaWriter
Summary: When Sherlock comes face to face with a ginger, somewhat shorter version of himself, he feels the need to explain a rather delicate matter.  Martin is unnerved by the whole thing, and Sherlock realises how hard it is to not be Mycroft.
1. Chapter 1

Lost Baggage (or, alternatively, Finder's Keepers)

...

The first time they met, it was in the morgue. As Sherlock walked in with John not far behind him, they could hear two people laughing, and once they were through the door, they could see the sources of this laughter. One of them was Molly. The other, a ginger-haired man with his back to them, who looked just an inch or two shorter than Sherlock, wearing normal clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt. Simple and normal.

Maybe that was why John was so shocked when the man turned around only to have Sherlock's face.

Everything. The only thing to suggest that they were in fact different people was that this new bloke was a redhead with freckles. Everything else screamed 'identical twin!' like nobody's business.

Obviously the stranger had noticed this as well, because he was now exhibiting class A awkward behaviour. Stuttering and staring, looking back and forth between an embarrassed Molly who was red in the cheeks, and John, who didn't know what was going on either, and Sherlock.

Sherlock, who hadn't said a word.

"Er," John started, not quite knowing what you were supposed to say in this sort of situation.

He didn't get to say anything else.

"You," Sherlock had said, suddenly and without warning coming alive again after seeming to have turned to stone. Or at least, whatever it was that he'd been doing, since he obviously can't have been in shock, caught unaware or not.

The next moment, Molly and John watched as Sherlock took the man by the arm and started all but dragging him toward the nearest free room. "I think we need to talk."

The two left behind stared at the door, but then John shrugged, and asked Molly who the lookalike was, mostly from morbid curiosity.

"No one, really. No, I don't mean that, I mean - I just met him today. He had a few hours free in London. Airline pilot, you know. I'd have thought he was Sherlock, except Sherlock was with you and you'd just texted me about that case you two were on, so I knew he had to still be with you. Sorry, um."

John shook his head, and Molly gave him a worried look.

"It's nothing. It's just… weird, that's all."

"Yeah," Molly said with a nervous laugh. "Weird."

...

The moment they were in the room - classroom, not used since earlier this week, nothing dangerous or potentially hazardous, nothing deceased remaining - Sherlock let go of Martin's arm, and stared for precisely fifteen seconds. After this, he started to pace about the room, which only served to confuse Martin further.

"Um, sorry. Well, but. Why-"

"You're Martin Crieff-"

"_Captain_ Martin Crieff, and how did you-?"

"All right, then. Captain." A twitch of Sherlock's lips suggested a smile of amusement, but nothing more. "And I'm Sherlock Holmes." There, he paused, an odd look on his face, as though he didn't quite know where to go from there. Which was actually quite accurate, since the truth was, he didn't.

"Oh. Then, would you mind telling me why...?"

There was a particularly pathetic manner to Martin, Sherlock found, that was evident even when the man was trying hard to be assertive. All in all, he found it to be at the same time irritating and confusing. But that was neither here nor there.

He cleared his throat, and stood still.

"I feel that I owe you an apology of sorts."

There. He'd said it.

Martin, however, clearly did not feel that this was an adequate explanation for his actions.

"I've never met you before in my life! And- and what's more, I think I'd know if I had! You've _got my face_!"

"Actually-" Sherlock cut himself off. Maybe that was a bit quick. How about... yes. "For your information, the incident I'm referring to happened more than just 'several' years ago, and you weren't at fault at all. Ergo, my apology."

Martin stopped flailing, just a bit. Not completely, but enough that it was obvious he was listening and he still didn't get it.

"I still don't understand. How could you have something to apologise to _me_ for?"

"Because," Sherlock started, leaning now against one of the tables, eyes shuttered, "at the age of five I noticed certain odd things going on, and, being five, did not see any reason why I should not inform both of my parents at the same time."

"I... don't see what that has to do with me? Or, you know. Right here and now."

"On the contrary," Sherlock countered, "it has everything to do with you. After all - how was I supposed to know, at the age of five, that my deductions would lead to the discovery of my father's... _affair_. Mummy was most displeased."

Affair. That was it. Out into the open, as they said.

Martin found himself staring at this strange mirror-image version of himself, who was, as far as he could see, much smarter, much better looking and much more confident. _If he were an airline pilot,_ Martin thought, _no one would ever mistake him for the steward or the flight attendant. He'd always be the captain._

He found it somewhat ridiculous, being jealous of someone with his own face.

His... own face.

And... _ohgod._ He needed to sit down. He really- oh, chair. That was useful. He sat with a thump.

"So. You, uh. How?"

"How did I reach the conclusion that it was you? Apart from the fact that I distinctly remember the woman he'd met with being a redhead and the very singular fact that we look like long lost _twins_?" Well, that was a start, at any rate. "...Mycroft also has an interest in you, especially given my profession and your face. Before this, we didn't exactly walk in the same circles."

"...Oh."

'Oh'. That was a 'not good' sound, wasn't it?

"Those friends of yours don't know, do they?"

Sherlock snorted. "If they did, I would hardly have dragged you to the nearest place of privacy, now would I?" Not least because this way, it meant that the only witness to his moment of pride-swallowing was Martin himself.

Even so, Martin was having a hard time coming to terms with what he was being told.

"But. I've got to- why wait all this time? Or rather, why tell me at all? I was fine not knowing. You could've just... left it be. Or something."

"I told you I owed you an apology," came Sherlock's drawl. "Failing to explain why you were cut off from the potential support one of your parents might have been willing to give would have hardly fulfilled that requirement."

"...Oh." This time, it was quieter. Martin stood, legs wobbling somewhat. This was the first time he'd ever had a brother. This was the first time he'd been told he was the result of his mum's affair with what sounded like some rich bloke who'd been more or less happily married. "I think I need to, uh, think about this."

And with that he started out of the door. He was not running away. Airline pilots, Captains, even, did not run away.

He did, however, leave behind a very confused John Watson and an equally confused but also indignant Molly Hooper - who believed that he had scared away her new friend and potential boyfriend - behind, both converging on one Sherlock Holmes, wanting to know what had been said and what had gone on to cause such a reaction.

...

AN: Awkward Sherlock here is AWKWARD. It feels kind of OOC, but that's... bearing in mind that he's bringing up and bringing to the front of his mind an event that happened when he was five. Which I would say would be hard, and that it's a 'mistake' would make it even worse.


	2. Chapter 2

Against his better judgement, Martin spent the rest of the day at home, in his attic, instead of out on the streets doing the job he was paid to do. Maybe not the better of the two options financially, but he couldn't see how he'd have been able to do a good job like this anyway.

The day had started out so well. He supposed now, he should have known better - look what luck always did when he was the one supposed to be getting it. Usually it was like playing hide and seek with that group of kids who were popular, but you only realised were actually rather mean when they left you in your hiding place while you kept waiting to be found - in this case, he was the one waiting to be found, and luck was the bunch of kids going on to find someone more interesting to play with.

He'd started and finished a short job in his man-with-a-van role, just moving someone's old chair from one town to the other. It was there that he'd bumped into Molly, who he'd met, apparently, on one of her off days. They'd started to talk, and that had been okay, and he really didn't know how it had been okay apart from that she was, apparently, just as bad at talking with people as he was.

Or, he thought now, maybe it was just because he looked so much like... him.

Well, maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't. But either way, she talked to him, and he talked to her, and they were nervous together. So, in a weird way, it had worked, and he had started to feel a little less nervous. And then, her phone had gone off, and she'd said sorry, but she had to go back to work. He'd asked her what work was, and she fumbled over telling him that she dealt with dead people.

He'd offered to drive her back, and she'd said he didn't have to and he'd said he wanted to, so she said okay. So long as she paid the congestion charge - she worked in London, after all.

Maybe he should have asked why no one really asked him to leave when he accidentally followed Molly to work. It would certainly have made his day far more normal.

But he didn't, and instead what had happened had happened and there was no going back and changing anything.

He'd always known, by the way things had added up - or hadn't - that Michael Crieff wasn't... _actually_ his father. No, it had hardly been brought up, but Martin had known, mostly through what hadn't been said.

He hadn't cared much, though. Dad had been dad, right up until the day he'd died, and, somehow, even though he only got a van, afterwards. He hadn't needed to spare that much thought to who he was _blood_ related to. Mum hadn't cared, and neither of them had treated him any differently, and it was hardly as though he looked that different from Simon and Caitlin.

It was only now that he realised just how similar he looked to one Sherlock Holmes.

He groaned, and covered his face with his hands.

It would probably be just his luck if Molly thought he never wanted to see her again, either, too.

...

The next day, however, he had to continue life as normal, or at least, as close to 'normal' as one got when one was a pilot and their moonlighting job as a man with a van was the one that paid.

He'd found himself halfway through the morning hauling someone's sofa and two chairs to a flat on the other side of London, only to find that they didn't get in through the door on the first try, or even the third, no matter what they did with them. They ended up taking the door off, and even then it was close. On the one hand, he could see this as bad luck, since it was so much hard work and effort and took so long, but on the other hand he could see it as good luck since… it took so long.

His second job of the day started on a shaky note, but not one he'd been - completely, at least, he could at least say - at fault for.

Right in the middle of discussing what, exactly, he was going to be needed for, his phone started to ring. It wasn't one of those smart ones, which was capable of doing everything a phone should do and everything no one used to expect a phone should be able to do, but it could at least take photos (bad quality) and show caller display.

This was from an unknown number. So, obviously, not Carolyn, Douglas or Arthur, or family. Most likely, his mind supplied, someone who wanted A Man With A Van, and had called at a bad time. He answered the call, making his excuses to his current clients, and started to walk off for privacy.

"Ah, good. You _are _there."

He nearly dropped the phone. He knew that voice. He heard it every time he opened his mouth to speak.

"Wh- what are- _How did you get my number?_"

He distinctly heard a snort from the person on the other line.

"Simple. You gave it to Molly, Molly left it lying around long enough for me to find it, and now I have it. Didn't you want to know why I called?"

No, he really didn't. He really, honestly, didn't. He was on the job! The _paying_ job, even! But that wasn't what came out of his mouth.

"Oh, um. Right. Well… quickly? It's just, I'm kind of busy at the moment, and-"

"It won't take long. Now - tell me how you'd call the weather over Sussex two days ago."

"…What?"

"How a _pilot_ would describe the weather over Sussex two days ago? Or is that not simple enough for you?"

Duly chastened, Martin reeled off a basic weather report from two days ago, trying to ignore the fact that he wasn't in an aeroplane and tried not to stutter too much.

Sherlock didn't say anything for it. He was silent - or at least, that's all that Martin could hear, silence. At first he thought he'd been cut off, but then, once he'd finished, the voice of his older half-brother came back, sounding somewhat more smug (if that was possible) than before, although at the same time as though he was trying not to let it show.

"Right. Thank you for that."

And _then_ he hung up, leaving Martin completely and utterly lost.

At least he could deal with his current clients now, though, and did so, the job - thankfully or not - not taking nearly so long as the morning job, even if the day itself left him feeling tired by the end of it, since all of that plus the weird phone call he still couldn't quite wrap his head around were quite enough to make him want to go home to his attic and curl up in bed for a few hours. Just his luck, he supposed, that GERTI had an early start in the morning.

There was one thing he remembered to do before crashing for the night, however. And that was to store that number into his phone. At least next time, he reasoned, he'd have fair warning.

Indeed… the next morning, just before he reached the plane and had to turn his mobile phone off, a text reached him.

_Help much appreciated, killer caught. Pilot. You weren't acquainted. SH._

...

AN: Originally posted to Tumblr one at a time (the same as the previous chapter) so that's why sections might seem... stilted or different. But I'm putting them together, because that way people get longer chapters and it makes slightly more sense (and less angst than if you'd just got the Martin bit first and not the second bit with it).

There is also going to be more of other characters later on, on both sides.


	3. Chapter 3

Lost Baggage (or, alternatively, Finder's Keepers)

...

After having pressed 'send' on the text, Sherlock stared at his phone with an expression on his face that, had it been on any other person's face, one might have called confusion. In fact, even though it _was_ on his face, it could still, technically, be called confusion.

He had never, in all of his life, had a younger brother before. Never really felt the need to. Of course, technically speaking the younger brother had always been there, ever since he'd been five, young and inexperienced, but apart from the shame of a _mistake_ - his own, for revealing the truth when it maybe shouldn't have been, Mycroft's for knowing and not telling him, their mother, for not seeing the obvious, and their father, for doing the deed in the first place and cheating on mummy.

Of course, this all meant that the only one who had not in fact been complicit in the way the situation had turned out was, in fact, Martin himself.

Yet he'd never put too much thought into the fact that while Martin being younger than he made Martin the 'younger brother', it also made Sherlock into the 'older brother'. Mycroft was the 'older brother', not Sherlock. They were simply two opposing ideas that did nothing except come into conflict, and only now was he trying to examine the idea on its own.

Just what, exactly, was ordinarily expected in this sort of situation?

"Sherlock?"

Oh, John. Of course. He'd probably been watching him stare at his phone all this time.

"Hm?"

"Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm fine, what would make you think I'm not fine?"

What would he want from some strange person claiming to be related to him, if they'd only just met?

"It's just, you've been staring at your phone… Look, it's probably nothing." Thank goodness for that. He could tell when he didn't want to talk about something. "But - who was it you texted? You don't have to answer if you don't want to," came the quick addition the moment John saw his mouth move, assuming (correctly, this once) that there would be an objection.

"…Long lost relative of mine. Nothing important," he conceded.

And then, the phone was out again and he was sending off another text - this time to Lestrade.

_Send over all cold cases to do with flight and pilots._

_SH_

Within five minutes he had a reply asking what they were for - _serial murderer or something - _John sending over a curious glance but nothing more.

_Nothing of the sort. Just do it. _

_SH_

Now all he had to do was wait for them to arrive, and he could start.

...

Martin completed the pre- and post- take off checks, somewhat grateful that the latest set of passengers neither had specific needs, nor were particularly wealthy as individuals, meaning that they didn't need to pay any actual attention to them aside from what Arthur gave out by simply being, well. Arthur.

He was fairly certain, in fact, that he had far more occupying his mind than was good for an airline (airdot) captain. It was a good thing he'd done the checks so many times, or... things might not have been going so smoothly.

It wasn't his fault, though. If anything, he'd blame Sherlock, but even then it wasn't Sherlock's fault he'd arrived at the hospital... or maybe it was. He couldn't tell, by now. Maybe, just maybe, it was just his own bad luck. He had enough of it.

As was quite clear by the way he was currently losing a game of 'Today On My Flight Plan I Will Be Going To...'. So far, they hadn't managed to go further than three stopovers, and that had been because Douglas had gone first. Now, though...

"All right, Martin. This is the third time you've come up with 'Helsinki'. Either you've developed a sudden and irrepressible desire to return to that most wonderful of places, or for some as yet unexplained reason, it aptly describes your current mood."

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"It is if it's affecting your ability to _fly_. Now, _correct_ me if I'm _wrong_, Captain, but that's a rather important thing to have while in the _air_."

Martin scowled and double checked the readings. They were perfectly fine. And so was he. And he said so.

Douglas gave him a look, which is to say one of _those_ looks where it implied that he was perfectly well aware that things were not 'perfectly fine', and that while he was leaving it for now, he was going to be keeping an eye on Martin.

Thankfully, the flight was a short one, and he was somehow ale to steal a few minutes to himself with which to berate himself for being so blatantly obvious and allowing his personal life to invade his professional life - regardless whether or not he actually got _paid_.

It was during this precious time that his phone buzzed with a text alert.

He'd turned the thing back on once he'd left the plane, just in case something like this happened - usually it was a call, though. That's how most people liked to contact him if they wanted him to be a Man with a Van, so...

...Oh.

It wasn't from a client. It was from the only number in his current phone's address book who was neither a part of MJN or... well, a part of MJN. Everyone else who called either had his number because he'd given it out on a little piece of card, or because it had been his lucky day on the crank-spam generator.

It wasn't even asking for something extraordinary - just a simple fact about a mid-sized jet a slight bit larger than G-ERTI, that anyone would know if they'd been on one of that size. He sent off his reply rapidly, wondering what it was all for.

Another one came several minutes later, and he replied to that, too.

When the third one came, his reply included an enquiry as to whether he was going to have his phone bill paid for him if he kept getting texts in Marrakesh.

He stared at the phone's admittedly small and out of date screen several minutes after that when his reply, basically speaking, said _yes_.

And Douglas wondered why he looked about ready to bang his head repeatedly against something hard and solid as they went back to the plane.

Much to the crew's amusement and Martin's frustration, the texts really didn't stop. Whenever his phone was on - that is, whenever they'd landed - there was usually to be heard the sound of a text alert.

In fact, it reached the point where, near the end of the week, when Douglas took pity on his Captain and let him choose the word game of the flight, Martin groaned.

"I don't care. I really don't. So long as it's not 'How many ways can a person be killed on an aeroplane', I really. Do not. _Care_."

...

AN: And so there you have what Sherlock does with those cold cases. OH, Sherlock… that is _not_ how one usually tells someone that you want them to be involved in your life. By throwing cases at them.


End file.
